need money saving tips!! HELP!

cbb722 · July 2013

hello ladies!
I know I havent posted in a while but I need all the help I can get. I have decided to stay home with our little one but we also just bought a house. without dipping into our tiny nest egg of a savings account too much, do any of you smart ladies have any budget saving tips for around the house? i have never been stingy in my life - if anything, DH and I have always been somewhat frivolous.

any help is greatly appreciated!!

watermellens · July 2013

I have lots of ways we save money

DH and I both have money taken directly out of our paychecks to save for retirement - we never see it so we never miss it.

Neither of us have smartphones and therefor don't pay for internet on our phone

We don't have a landline

We have a family plan for our cells

I rarely get my nails done and when I do, I usually use a gift certificate - I paint my nails myself

We don't have premium movie channels

We rent movies from the library

I coupon - A LOT - I stock up when I have a coupon and when things are on sale so I don't have to pay full price for something I need for dinner tonight for example

I use swagbucks to get amazon gift cards to pay for diapers (PM me anyone if you want more info or a tutorial I typed up) - I spend very little out of pocket for diapers each month

I go to garage sales for clothes for the kiddos and toys

We don't go on fancy vacations

We don't buy big electronics/video games/etc

We rent movies from the library, books as well

We don't have kindles/nooks/tablets

Funnygirl34 · July 2013

I replied on the March moms board. PP has a great list!

=Lee=B · July 2013

Totally do-able but it takes planning and sacrifices. We use cloth diapers (and not the fancy designer ones that cost a lot). We bought pretty much everything for baby used (except car seats). I cook in really large batches and freeze for future meals (one massive pot of spaghetti lasts 6-8meals) this cuts down on food costs by buying bulk and preventing us from eating convenience foods which cost more. Make these large meals based on what is on sale to further lower food costs. Stock up on sale items. For example, when there is a huge sale I buy months and months worth of toilet paper. I hate buying anything not on sale so I wait then stock up. Our pantry is stocked full but nothing was regular price. When we have a big purchase we save up and budget for it before buying, no credit card balances so no interest. As odd as it seems for most things we only buy the best so that we never have to replace it (or not anytime soon). So we wait longer but get better. Everything we buy is heavily researched to find the best then we wait until it is on sale. We just spent weeks picking out our infants next car seat, researching online, tried them out in person and now we wait a few months until the best sale price comes up. It's likely too late for this since your baby is here but years ago before we bought our house we sat and budgeted life so that we can survive debt free on only my husband's income. Then when I don't work we are fine and when I return to work it is all extra money. That said, we are somewhat frugal and really don't spend much in daily life so it works for us. We have a huge house on a huge lot but our car is 14 yrs old despite having money put away for a new one. We don't buy new clothes often, we don't update our technology often but we travel lots. My husband has a million pie charts, graphs and tables planning out finances. We also have at least 20 separate bank accounts (within our account) to keep things separate...the car repair fund money is separate from travel money, from house repair, from date night money. Sometimes we borrow from another 'account' for something but we make a plan to 'pay it back' to the proper account asap. I'll note most of this planning is my husband and the cheapness is me...so together it works perfectly!

karadenisereid · July 2013

Get all the hand me downs you can get...also I love shopping at Good will, I have two girls 5mos and almost 2, I buy a lot of "play" clothes there because I dont care if they mess them up because they were sooo cheap.

Eat in as much as possible, this is a no brainer, but its tough because Im beat sometime and just want to order in or go out.

Get rid of some of your TV/cable package...seriously pretty soon you will not be able to watch "your" shows anyway. We have just basic and subscribe to netflix.

If you buy Organic, dont buy everything organic, just the Dirty Dozen, saves lots of money.

Take advantage of free kid activities in your city. We go to the library a lot, they have twice weekly story time and an awesome play area....of course parks etc

Hope that helps a bit. Now that Im a SAHM Ive had to limit some of my extras...lol...my husband now gives me pedicures

I would like to see what others are doing to save money too!

ka2shaz · July 2013

Meal planning is the one thing we do. I figured out we saved about 500 a month when we originally started doing it. It's easy and you end up not wasting food.

ashcody2 · July 2013

cbb722:

hello ladies!
I know I havent posted in a while but I need all the help I can get. I have decided to stay home with our little one but we also just bought a house. without dipping into our tiny nest egg of a savings account too much, do any of you smart ladies have any budget saving tips for around the house? i have never been stingy in my life - if anything, DH and I have always been somewhat frivolous.

any help is greatly appreciated!!

I don't do a ton to save but:

We don't have tv package, we use netflix $7.99/mo.

I coupon a lot more since becoming a mom - coupons.com has new ones almost daily (diapers/wipes/formula as well as household supplies)

Sign up for enfamil or whichever brand (if you formula feed) on their site: I BF but have to supplement for DC and get checks from Enfamil for $5 each, I usually get them mailed and haven't paid full price for a can of forumla yet. I either have the enfamil checks or coupons to use.

I use Amazon Mom for subscribe & save on diapers/wipes: you save 20%, I buy the XXL packs (152 I think for size 3) and save $10 and they ship monthly and save about $5 on wipes.

ebates.com, if you make a lot of online purchases you can actually get cash back, mailed every 3 months - my next check will be $20, you don't get TONS of cash back but if you order clothes online or anything you can earn some money back that you paid! https://www.ebates.com/rf.do?referrerid=%2F8DC2cLPXhkav%2FXjZm%2BWvQ%3D%3D Also, use retailmenot.com and you can usually find coupon codes/deals for almost every website. I check daily.

We shop at Aldi for groceries.

That's about all we do, not much but it does help a little bit.

bibby32714 · July 2013

Another thing to do that may save money is actually go thru your bills. Look at your cable bill and the services, can you cut any? Look at the cell phone bill, can you change plans to save money? Can you refinance any debt to lower interest paid without extending the length of loan? Ask your insurance agent if there is a way to lower that bill withour sacrificing coverage? Talk to credit card companes about lowering interest rates. Do you have any automatic charges to your accounts for services you may not using anymore?

tilsonc · July 2013

We save up and pay cash for everything (but our house and even that is on a 15 year note) so we don't have to pay interest.

JSS1002 · July 2013

I'm not great at this either, but my #1 tip is -- don't eat out! Make meal plans based on what is on sale; shopping off your list, and cook cook cook!

laujam31 · July 2013

=Lee=B:
Totally do-able but it takes planning and sacrifices. We use cloth diapers (and not the fancy designer ones that cost a lot). We bought pretty much everything for baby used (except car seats). I cook in really large batches and freeze for future meals (one massive pot of spaghetti lasts 6-8meals) this cuts down on food costs by buying bulk and preventing us from eating convenience foods which cost more. Make these large meals based on what is on sale to further lower food costs. Stock up on sale items. For example, when there is a huge sale I buy months and months worth of toilet paper. I hate buying anything not on sale so I wait then stock up. Our pantry is stocked full but nothing was regular price. When we have a big purchase we save up and budget for it before buying, no credit card balances so no interest. As odd as it seems for most things we only buy the best so that we never have to replace it (or not anytime soon). So we wait longer but get better. Everything we buy is heavily researched to find the best then we wait until it is on sale. We just spent weeks picking out our infants next car seat, researching online, tried them out in person and now we wait a few months until the best sale price comes up. It's likely too late for this since your baby is here but years ago before we bought our house we sat and budgeted life so that we can survive debt free on only my husband's income. Then when I don't work we are fine and when I return to work it is all extra money. That said, we are somewhat frugal and really don't spend much in daily life so it works for us. We have a huge house on a huge lot but our car is 14 yrs old despite having money put away for a new one. We don't buy new clothes often, we don't update our technology often but we travel lots. My husband has a million pie charts, graphs and tables planning out finances. We also have at least 20 separate bank accounts (within our account) to keep things separate...the car repair fund money is separate from travel money, from house repair, from date night money. Sometimes we borrow from another 'account' for something but we make a plan to 'pay it back' to the proper account asap. I'll note most of this planning is my husband and the cheapness is me...so together it works perfectly!

What bank allows you to do that? That seems awesome!

tig594 · July 2013

One of the biggest ways to save....get rid of your fancy phone plan (if you have one). I dumped AT&T and went to Boost. Great coverage and I now pay $35 a month for unlimited internet/talk/text. They also offer some really nice phones. You just pay up front for them.

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